


the ways i've loved you (the ways i've learned how)

by Avengerz



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Falling In Love, Finale spoilers, Fluff, Other, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash, Psuedoscience, The Chosen Squad, They're both bi, the minerva/duck tag doesn't exist yet rip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 21:03:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20766911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avengerz/pseuds/Avengerz
Summary: A/N: Set place AFTER the TAZ: Amnesty Finale! Don't spoil yourself!They change in the future as they have changed in the past. Somehow, there's always something new to learn.





	the ways i've loved you (the ways i've learned how)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glamorouscarnation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glamorouscarnation/gifts).

> Justin: "Honey-"  
Me:  

> 
> Dedicated to Oliver for being the fastest to like my message offering a fic and for prompting an addition to this fresh new ship
> 
> Not beta-d so if there's any especially egregious grammar just lmk

Loving Minerva is a magical thing, a wild thing, a growing and transforming thing. In the thirty years after that first, affectionate, “honey,” Duck watches Minerva evolve into new beliefs, understandings, affections, until she becomes someone entirely new over and over again. And Duck finds himself falling in love over and over again each time.

Duck changes too. How could he not? His understanding of morality and mortality and the truth of the universe is re-written when he joins the Pine-Guard, and again when everything is over. He is a new person when he moves to Brazil, and a new person when he comes back. The Duck that marries Minerva isn’t the same Duck that holds their children and certainly isn’t the same Duck that courts the idea of retirement. 

Duck doesn’t change for Minerva, but he changes _ with _her. Somehow they always end up sliding into place against each other, like stars maintaining fragile orbits around each other, defying and relying on a force almost as strong as gravity.

Theirs’ is a relationship of transformation, of new beginnings even after the end, of second chances at creating something good.

And it _ is _ good.

* * *

_The Day after Duck Newton Fulfills His Destiny:_

The town of Kepler, West Virginia is changed. The buildings are pockmarked with bullet holes and the marks of large claws. Amnesty lodge is weather-worn and abandoned behind the FBI’s barricades. The few remaining citizens of Kepler share stories of how they beat back the apocalypse. It is a new town - a new world. None of them are sure what’s next.

On the First Day after What Could Have Been The Last Day, Duck wakes to the rumble of voices and the smell of bacon.

He groans as he gets up - turns out surviving a C-4 explosion leaves you sore - and the voices pause a moment, then continue, louder. He can make out the rumble of Minerva’s voice now, Sarah Drake’s clipped reply, Leo Tarkesian's clear laughter.

Duck enters the kitchen to find the three of them clustered around his kitchen counter. Sarah's holding coffee and Leo’s prodding at bacon and Minerva is sipping cautiously at orange juice.

“Wayne Newton! Have you tried this orange juice? It is very tingly!”

Dcuk sighs just as Sarah looks over in surprise. “Yeah, Minerva, I’ve had orange-”

“Your name is _ Wayne? _” Sarah manages to both look unimpressed and tremendously amused.

“Wait,” Leo pipes up, “Your actual name is Wayne Newton? Like the-”

“Like the singer, yeah.” Duck figures he’d better get used to this - Minerva isn’t likely to call him anything else ever again. He's decided he's okay with that.

Leo says, “Huh.” Then, “you want some bacon?”

“It’s my apartment, ain’t it? I better get some bacon.”

“On my planet,” Minerva says, “we did not have mornings such as you consider them. But if they had, I doubt we would have joined together for a shared meal of pig meat and the itchy juice.” She beams at them all. “I am truly glad to have found myself a new life on this planet.”

Duck can’t help but grin back at her. If this is what life will be like now that his destiny is fulfilled, that’s not too bad. He misses Aubrey and Thacker and Ned most of all, but his friends are safe and so is the world and he gets this, now, bacon and companionship and the simple pleasure of a big breakfast after a long sleep after the day the planet was almost destroyed. If this is what he has now, Duck can be happy.

Then Duck frowns. “Wait, itchy juice? Orange juice isn’t-” He cuts himself off with a realization, and when he speaks again it’s with a rising horror. “Minerva? Do you have a citrus allergy?”

“What is an allergy?”

* * *

_2 Weeks after Duck Newton Fulfills His Destiny_

Every morning, Duck Newton puts on his hat and grabs a radio from its cradle and goes out into the forest. He measures tree growth and discourages campfires and finds lost hikers. He is in a land more familiar to him than breathing, and on warm evenings he pushes his fingers into the cool earth and thinks about how it could all be gone. He thinks about destiny, and the act of fulfilling it, and the question of what comes next. He thinks of friends lost to him and friends far from him and friends he’s found close by. He thinks of violence, and the cycle of it, and the terrible ache it leaves in your bones. He thinks of death, and mistakes, and revenge, and lies. He thinks of redemption, and forgiveness, and victory, and love.

He stands, wipes the dirt off of his hands. He picks up his hat, puts it on. He looks once more at the trees around him, and pats one of them on the trunk. Then he goes home.

In his living room he finds Minerva curled up in what has quickly become her usual spot on the sofa, a book in her hands and a cup of cold tea on the table.

She doesn’t look up when Duck enters the apartment, and he huffs a laugh as he hangs up his hat. “What’s got you so enraptured this time?”

Minerva is usually a tightly-coiled spring, tension from the years of war and battle and loss weaved into the way she watches the exits and examines strangers for a weapon. Duck hasn’t approached without her notice - he doubts he ever could - but she’s comfortable enough to stay relaxed even as Duck sits on the couch beside her. Duck tries (and fails) not too feel ridiculously pleased by that.

“It is an account by your Stephen Hawking,” she says, and shows him the cover. “Humanity has very strange ideas about how time works.”

“Oh yeah? What’d we get wrong?”

“I’m sorry to say, Wayne Newton, that most of it is wrong. In my experience, time doesn’t behave the same in different universes.”

Duck frowns. “What do you mean? Like time is slower or faster on other planets?”

Minerva set the book aside and cocked her head at Duck. “Sometimes, it appears that way, yes. The concept of time manifests itself differently on the reality of the world. How it impacts physicality can vary wildly. Stone that could seemingly last thousands of years on one planet could erode in what seems like seconds on another.”

Duck blinks.

“So… you’re saying that things have shorter, what, lifetimes depending on the planet? Because they’re more or less affected by the passing of time?”

“Yes!” Minerva points at Duck excitedly. “Exactly, Wayne Newton!”

Duck frowns. “Wait, does that mean Aubrey isn’t going to age in Sylvain? Because the “old man” jokes will become unbearable.”

“No, the linked worlds usually operate on similar time-scales. My-” Minerva falters for a moment, then continues, “my planet and it’s twin experienced space-time near identically. It’s what makes the war possible.”

“Shit, Minerva.” Duck wishes desperately that he was better at comforting people. “That blows, I’m sorry.”

Minerva smiles tightly. “It is the past. I cannot change it, but I can learn from it.”

Duck nods, and they lapse into quiet for a time. Minerva picks up the book and Duck flicks on the TV in time to catch the nightly news. Then a thought occurs.

“Wait, so then how old are you?”

Minerva considers the question for a long moment. “It is difficult to equate your Earth-days with my planets rotations, but I believe I am about… three thousand of your years?”

_ “What?” _

“Oh, wait, I forgot to take into account the Broinous Effect. I actually have age equivalent to 43 years on Earth.”

“Jesus, Minerva. I don’t know what’s weirder, the idea of you being thousands of years old or basically the same age as me.” Duck frowns. “Actually, if you’re only a few years older than me, how come you looked much older when I was 18? For that matter, how do you look pretty much the same now as you did then?”

Minerva shrugged. “Time is weird, Wayne Newton!”

Duck laughs. “Yeah, I guess so. Does that mean you’re gonna live forever here on Earth?”

Suddenly, Minerva looks somber. “No. I have run some tests since first arriving in your world. I am… deteriorating much faster on Earth than I ever did on my home planet.”

The beginnings of panic tug at Duck’s heart. “Deteriorate?”

Minerva must see something in Duck’s eyes, because she says, “Yes, but it is okay, Wayne Newton! It is a natural process, just greatly sped up here.”

This does not assuage Duck’s fears. “How sped up?!”

“I now experience aging at approximately the same rate as humans,” Minerva says, and Duck catches a breath. “I believe that unless another fate befalls me, I shall last on this planet another fifty years or so.”

“Oh,” Duck says. “Well that’s- that’s not too bad, right? I mean, I know it’s not an eternity on a badass alien planet, but it could be worse. It’s not too bad to live a human lifetime on Earth, is it?”

Minerva smiles. “No, Wayne Newton, I don’t think it is.”

**Author's Note:**

> Original plan was a 5 + 1 things but I ran out of writing fuel. So there might be more of this fic? I want to show their relationship as it evolves but idk if i'll have the time and energy rip
> 
> but hey, bouyed by enough comments, kudos, and general validation, i can write anything! (hint hint nudge nudge please validate me and my writing)


End file.
